36. Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Six
LYNX
Swiping my thumb over my mouth, I regard my uncle with mild suspicion. He gave me his word that he wouldn’t get in my way or harm Harlow. And he’s never given me reason to doubt his honor before.
Yet here I am, seated across from the ripe old fuck that Sloane tracked down as one of the men who hurt Harlow because I can’t let him out of my sight for a goddamn second for fear of him or Harlow trying to pull a move and kill one another.
But now, there’s a nagging sensation in the pit of my gut that tells me something’s off about this entire contract.
Did Franklin really hire Severo—hire me—anonymously? Or did Severo know it was him all along?
Down the length of the table, Lily clears her throat and shifts in her seat. I flick my gaze to my sister to find her staring at me with her brows pinched tight with worry. She tips her chin at Harlow’s empty chair, hinting that I should go check on her.
And that gut feeling intensifies.
“Excuse me,” I mutter, rising from my chair and padding down the hall, stopping in front of the open bathroom door and peering into the empty room.
“Harlow,” I call down the hall, my hackles rising when I’m met with silence.
Panic makes its grand entrance as I begin checking rooms, desperate to lay eyes on my girl.
When I head back to the dining room, I find Franklin and Severo still seated exactly where I left them, laughing about something while Lily fidgets with the napkin in her lap.
“Where is she?” I snarl, slapping my palms on the table and causing the silverware to rattle. “I swear to fucking god, if you’ve hurt her—“
My uncle recoils in surprise, shocked at my outburst, and holds a hand in the air.
“What are you talking about, son?”
“Harlow,” I growl, swinging my glare to the sick old fuck seated next to the man who raised me. “You. What have you done with her?”
“Lynx,” Lily says cautiously from my right. “What’s going on?”
“Go, Lily. Get in your vehicle and go to my house. And don’t leave until I say so.”
“No. Not until you tell me what’s—“
“I said fucking leave, Lil!”
Lily bristles beside me, her eyes darting over each of us before she stands and does as she’s told.
Only once I hear the garage door slide open and Lily’s car take off down the driveway do I pull my gun from the back of my jeans and aim it at Franklin’s head.
In a calmer tone, I grate out through clenched teeth, “Where is she?”
A muscle in his flabby jaw slides as he narrows his eyes on me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Lynx,” Severo says with warning. “What are you doing?”
I swing the gun to my uncle and cock the hammer. “You lied to me.”
He shakes his head. I can’t tell if this is all an act or not because he’s never lied to me before. I have no frame of reference.
“About what?” he asks calmly as he stares straight into my eyes.
“About the contract. You knew who purchased it. And you’re protecting him. Why?”
I catch Franklin shifting in his seat and aim the gun at him again.
“Don’t fucking move, asshole. Or I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.”
All the blood drains from his face as he raises his palms in the air in surrender.
“Fuck,” I shout, pacing the end of the table to think things through.
The only thing I can seem to think to do is to torture the living fuck out of them until one of them breaks and tells me where Harlow is.
But that will take too long, and my girl is somewhere that’s not fucking here where I need her to be.
“I didn’t lie to you, son,” Severo says. “I assure you, I haven’t done anything to Harlow. I know she’s struggling mentally. Is there a chance she took off running?”
I come to a skidding stop and shoot daggers at him.
Pointing the gun at Franklin, I respond coldly, “She wouldn’t run when one of the men who locked her up in that church basement and abused her for two fucking years was sitting right here in front of her.”
The expression on my uncle’s face morphs into genuine confusion, then quickly into disgust as he turns his head to Franklin, who’s glowering at me.
It becomes crystal clear that Severo had nothing to do with this.
This was all Franklin.
“You thought I didn’t know,” I drawl, a dark chuckle bubbling from my chest. “Oh, I fucking know. I know everything, you sick fuck. And I’m going to skin you from head to toe myself if it’s the last thing I do.”
And then I pull the trigger and put a bullet in him.
He wails and topples onto the floor, clutching at the bleeding hole in his right shoulder.
Severo sits stock-still as I storm around the table and drag old Franklin to his feet. Without his cane, he can barely stand upright.
“Let me help you into your chair, Franklin,” I snarl, and shoot him in the foot so he has an excuse to sit the fuck down.
He screams again, then starts coughing and sputtering like a fool.
Pointing the gun at his crotch this time, I say with the seriousness of a full-body rash, “Now tell me where she is and who took her before I put another hole in that pathetic excuse for a cock, you flaccid old fuck.”
A little more coughing. A little more wheezing.
When I tap him in the temple with the gun, he peers up at me with bloodshot eyes, the saggy skin around them an awful purple color that gives him the appearance of a day-old corpse.
He flicks his gaze to Severo, then back to me, acceptance of his fate settling over him like a thick fog as he slumps back in his chair.
But just as my finger is hovering over the trigger, my phone vibrates in my pocket.
Groaning, I retrieve my phone from my pocket and answer the call.
“What is it?”
When the sound of gum popping filters through, followed by a familiar female voice—Sloane—informing me who the sixth man I’m going to murder is, a sinister grin tugs at my lips as a darkness I’ve never felt before cloaks me.
Ending the call, I tuck my phone and gun back into my jeans and haul Franklin to his feet and out to my truck.
But before I leave the house, I stop and glance over my shoulder at my uncle, who’s standing in the foyer, watching me come undone at the seams.
“Looks like I’m not the only monster you raised, sir. I suggest you start making peace with that before I put him six feet under.”